Agriculture

Southern States’ feed mills announced upgrades to its Winchester Kentucky Feed Mill, manufacturers of Triple Crown and Southern States’ Legends brand equine feeds in addition to a number of Southern States animal and livestock feeds. The Winchester mill serves the company’s western territory with primary distribution in Kentucky and West Virginia.

Before you squish, consider the next generation of beneficial insects that you may be eliminating from your garden. We have come to look at all insects as bad, which is far from the truth.

We delight over butterflies but likely kill many while in the caterpillar stage; we love lady beetles, but the nymph stage looks a little scary; and we swat and spray ever fly, wasp and bee in ear-shot.

The Kentucky Agricultural Development Board approved the Shelby Area Rural Conservation Inc. for $5,378 in Shelby County Agricultural Development Funds to explore opportunities to preserve and protect rural land by acquiring and maintaining agricultural conservation easements.

Powdery mildew is probably the most common garden fungus around, and it is not too terribly picky about where it spreads.

It likes humid weather, thrives in the heat of the summer and is hard to control once it has started. The trick here is to prevent it from happening by proper plant selection, spacing, pruning and treatment before it spreads.

Powdery mildew is caused by several different fungi. I won’t bore you with their names because they all act the same way.

Kentucky USDA Farm Service Agency Executive Director John McCauley reminds farmers and landowners that they have until Wednesday to enroll their farms in the 2011 Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) and the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) Program. More than 75 percent of an expected 1.7 million farms have already enrolled.